pic.twitter.com/kvC1B5h32U— Tim Hart (@yunghart6) January 18, 2016
This is why an early signing period would be nice to see. Would significantly limit the amount of times this seems to happen to student athletes. 6 months he was committed and now all of a sudden is told his spot was taken. Seems to be happening a lot more lately which is pretty shitty
Has an offer from Memphis but Dickey was listed as main recruiter. Wonder if Bud/Scott will reach out to see if he is interested.
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
My gut instinct on this is that they're making room for Jaquan Bailey.
that could be it.
They had 9 visitors this weekend including a top 100 WR and another 4* WR along with a couple defensive sided players.
So they're making room for someone. I just think it would be hilarious if they dumped a non-commitable offer because they think they have Bailey locked up, and then we snipe him this weekend.
If we can get him on campus this weekend, this storm is looking to be something else
Even if we do get these kids here, its not a great time for the to see VT.
Heck, I loved Blacksburg and Virginia Tech, but my last year, the winter was so bad, I didnt even consider them at first for Grad school, I just hated the cold that much. It certainly didnt help living in a house off Roanoke street and missing the bus everyday and having to walk across the drill field in that wind, ughhghh (shutter) that windddd.
Nice snow storm setting up for this weekend too. Tennessee had Randy Moss on an official visit in January of his senior year. Big snow storm came and he spent the entire weekend diving in the indoor pool.
I remember reading the story of how Vinnie Burns first visited Tech with his dad who was on the Sugar Bowl committee in New Orleans. They came on a visit to present the Sugar Bowl Trophy after Tech beat Texas in that first National Signature win for the Hokies. It was during the Winter and a blizzard hit that weekend. They trudged over to Cassell and were amazed at the turn out in that weather. Vinnie had never seen snow before and thoroughly enjoyed the visit and was amazed by the school. That impression got us the best punter we ever had up until now..... just sayin.
This class is small, we can only take 17 because weve taken a full class the past 3 years, so weve got to be choosy. Overall the class will be decent, but because of numbers it wont look like anything special.
Nm
There's two ways of going about this, and I don't pretend to understand the SEC mentality. You can keep upgrading and make your football team as jam packed with better recruits which a lot of fans would favor. The second approach, what Frank and hopefully JF do, is treat the recruit as if it were their child. I mean, come on man, if that's your son who was promised a scholarship, courted, and contacted for months or years to the point where they tell all their friends, teammates, teachers, and family that they will be playing for a school, then the school yanks it away because "you're not good enough" how would you feel?
I'm not condemning UT in anyway. I'm just saying I'm not comfortable doing business that way. Same goes for the Hokies. If they pulled this on a recruit I'd be ashamed in how that kid got done dirty. It's not right to treat a teenager like that.
This is why the rankings aren't a very good barometer. If you sign a large class with a bunch of guys at positions of non-need and a mediocre overall average star rating, you can have a higher ranking than a school that signs a smaller class with players at positions of need and a solid average star rating.
Average star rating is far from perfect, but it's a much better indicator. Sort the list by avg star rating rather than ranking and you'll see the same schools in the top 15...year in, year out. Because they're concerned about getting players, not class rankings.
Exactly. Now that we have depth I'm hoping our classes can even out.
Does a small class hurt Fuente in his first year? Or help, I imagine any D1 class would enjoy the weapons he inherited.
one word:
attrition
There's almost always more room in class than expected.
I mean VT is looking for LB's AND is going to beat the snot out of UT next year.
I like your attitude, sir.
Paging Hokiegirl. Her lack of presence in this thread is...disturbing.
She does have some "strongly held beliefs" when it comes to our neighbors down in Knoxville. It is quite entertaining to read her rants on the subject. Let's just wait and see if her spider sense starts to tingle....
Here's the deal:
Since word is getting out about Tennessee not being straight forward this can only bolster our cause. I can't imagine this isn't in the back of the minds of recruits once they hear about this and they take their officials.
More classy antics by UT, I always hate it when this happens to athletes. If you have a scholarship offer and it is accepted it should be honored unless there are major issues, see Council who ended up at Louisville I believe. That was always something I loved about VT as you never hear about this sort of thing, but unfortunately this happens a lot. Hopefully JF will continue with this format.
It goes both ways in the SEC. We had a 5* DT de-commmit last week, when we were the first ones to offer him, months before every one else. He says hes "still considering Tennessee" but you know how that goes. Its cut throat, a recruit will do it to the university just as fast, then youre left with a hole at a position of need. Ill never fault any school for pushing a kid away.
I will preface by saying that I appreciate your posts MoD. They always seem in good taste, and while "biased down the road" I never feel the urge to reach through the iPad and throttle you.
Having said that, I don't think it is acceptable for a school to take this approach to recruiting. It is understandable why a kid might change his mind... It is a very important decision and if another program comes along with something better then so be it. Recruiting and keeping said recruit is a difficult and tenuous proposition due to the maturity level of many being recruited. If a school loses the "high ground" in this relationship then what exactly is it that they are selling?
In unusual circumstances (such as a regime change) I think it acceptable for an incoming coach to tell an offered/committed athlete that his place in the new program isn't what it was under the old coach and suggest that he might be better off looking elsewhere.
But for a school to offer a kid and then leave them hanging? BOO on the school.
bingo
Agree 100% here. I got it kids change their mind and that's just as frustrating for the programs but understandable. But normally the kids are at least open about it. They say "Hey, I want to reopen my recruitment because reason X. I still like school Y but want to be sure I'm solid in my decision." Understandable, and that's why verbal commitments mean close to zero really.
However for the school to just go comms dark and not talk to the kid is a bit immature. Like that girl, you hung out with a couple times and is always like "Oh yeah lets get together again." and then dogdes your phone call (or text/tweet now) instead of just saying "I had a good time but I don't see us being anything more than friends." or something like that (not that that's ever happened to me......) I mean at least tell the kid, hey our situations have changed due to the new DC and we are looking at going more this way now. I hope the best for you. Yadda yadda yadda.
Actually, I'm quite sure MANY kids AREN'T quite open about it (we just don't hear about it for obvious reasons). I'll keep this short since I've posted this viewpoint before. A verbal commitment (in the present CFB climate) is NOT a commitment. The Dabo approach makes sense. Your spot on the team is yours when you commit, and if you want to keep shopping, so will the school. It's VERY reasonable.
UTenn's approach is very immature. These are experienced adults running the program and they should conduct themselves accordingly. The kids may not always do the right thing (for which there should be consequences, like revoked offers), but the school should know better.
Yes, I know it sucks, I'm strongly in favor of an early signing day to prevent it. Since we have to take a small class this year, we wanted him to blue shirt, maybe gray shirt, and he didn't want to do it. We have bigger needs and bigger recruits in our sights. It's not the first time and won't be the last. we dropped a kid last year that wanted to keep taking official visits, he went to Texas and is already transferring. We came out ahead because we got a 4 yr (probably 3) at MLB. It's a business. The downside to it is, the recruits aren't exactly business minded all the time. Again, it's not like I like it, but it doesn't bother me any. In the end, he'll find another school to go to, and we'll find another player.
I don't expect a 17 year old kid to be business minded.
I agree that an early signing period could help curb this.
There are blue shirts now? WTH is that? Like you live in a tent outside the practice facility and when a grey shirt opportunity opens up you can enroll and wait some more?
It's a concept that isn't used much. Rich Rod and Butch have been using it a lot lately. The jist of it is, the recruit has minimal contact and doesn't take an official visit to that school. When thy sign they won't count torward that years class. There's some stipulation also about when they can be on campus too, but I know the main part of it is that. It's really been helpful with our legacy recruits. Their parents bring them on campus, and basically do the recruiting.
Well if he who shall not be named is using it then VT should have no part in it and it seems like a shitty way to recruit kids to be a part of a TEAM.
I was waiting for that gif.
Sounds like they come as recruited walk ons..... OV's don't define the number that count towards a class limit.. it's the number of Scholarship Grant-In-Aids that are awarded. Of course, that technicality never seems to bother the SEC Institutes of Higher Chair Stacking........
Yea that's kind of it. I think they're basically walk Ina and then get their scholarships when they get to campus. The SEC actually has tougher scholarship rules than it used to, thanks to Ole Miss signing like 35 a few years ago. We have a limit of 25 and you can back count to the previous year if you don't take a full class. We had 27 either last year or the year before, don't remember. There's also an extra math class that recruits have to have in the sec that other conferences don't have to have.
Yeah, but can you take a psychology class and have it count for the math class?
Counting without using your fingers? I could see where other schools wouldn't require that one but the SEC might.
(Sorry, I couldn't resist such an easy set-up.)
Lol when they pass them, I don't ask questions. (Unless they go to Bama)
If things go my way in 2018 we'll have some green shirts. That's where we'll recruit twin brothers and only one will count against our scholarships because we'll just pretend there's one kid. NCAA won't notice.
We already do that Butch! But don't worry, they'll get a good view of them when one of them is running kicks back for TDs on them in September.
I agree that the knife cuts both ways. It's just unfortunate to see so late in the process when a kid has been committed for a long time and likely shut down their recruitment for the most part only to be told a few weeks out that they no longer have a spot. But it happens everywhere including at VT despite what most here want to think. It happened with Victor Greene this year with us. He committed to us way back in March but stated that he had not heard from the coaching staff in a while when he de-committed in December. I believe we were also his only offer at the time he de-committed.
Recruiting is just a dirty business on both ends. Players use schools as placeholders all the time, the same way schools use certain players as placeholders until something better comes along. Kareem Felder and Troy Pride both did that with us this year, being committed to us until OSU and ND came came calling then they bolted for the better opportunity. Jawand Blue and JaVonn Harrison are two recent guys that come to mind that had been committed to VT for a long time only to flip out of nowhere on signing day.
It's unfortunate but the kid seems to have a decent offer list so he should be able to land on his feet.
Feels like I have seen recruits complain about this as their reason for decomitting from Tennessee several times in the past year or two.
Jones is a douche! He try's to recruit like Bama but doesn't have the record to back up it up. This will eventually be the downfall of them. Fwiw I don't see him there much more than 2 years.
I'm like the New Coke. I'll be around for awhile.
Bravo to whoever you are, Mr. Jones. Classic.
until steve murphy finds you... oh wait different coke you're talking about whoopsss
Hahahahaha. Not surprised. As much as I'm glad this happened, I feel bad that the guy had to go through that. And yeah, I would say there's a chance that this might have something to do with Bailey. Fuente and Foster need to jump on this ASAP. We desperately need the depth, and of course, this would create for a fun story line and a very motivated guy at the Battle at Bristol.
This guy has 42% on his battery. I think he's responsible enough to Mike LB in Bud's system.
Made me laugh, a leg to you sir!
It's pronounced Kevin, correct? He just may be the boost we need on defense
HARRY!! WOOP WOOP!!
I hate hearing this, but on the other side of the coin, there is probably another athlete out there who is now thinking, 'Hey, Tennessee just dropped a committed scholarship offer to make room for me! Wow, those Tennessee guys are great'
Having said that, if he comes here he'll have the opportunity to exact revenge early next season.
If he is good enough to play linebacker in Bud Foster's defense as a true freshman, Tennessee is making a huge mistake in letting him go. He may be on the team that beats UT; but he is not likely to contribute.
THIS IS WHY WE NEED AN EARLY SIGNING PERIOD
when a kid de-commits its f him f that we didn't need him anyways he will ride the pine wherever he goes.
when a school pulls an offer it oh "Grades" or better player became available and its ok
I've seen it happen on both sides and its heartbreaking.
there it is.. cut the LB to make room for a 4* top 100 WR who played in the UA All American Bowl